Senate votes to give towns power to set smoking laws

May 18, 2005|By Erika Slife, Tribune staff reporter.

SPRINGFIELD — In a move that could open the door to broader crackdowns on smoking in restaurants, bars and other public buildings, the Illinois Senate voted Tuesday to give local communities more authority to set their own smoking rules.

It is the first time such a measure has passed both chambers, and the bill now heads to the governor's desk.

The bill's Senate sponsor, Sen. John Cullerton (D-Chicago), called the measure a "local control" bill rather than a public health measure.

A 1989 state law required the establishment of designated smoking areas in most public places. It prohibited local communities from going beyond that unless they had more restrictive anti-smoking rules in place when the law went into effect. Only about 20, including Chicago, did.

However, very few of the communities that currently enjoy the power to limit public smoking have exercised it. In Chicago, several City Council members have been talking for more than two years about pushing through a ban on smoking in restaurants and possibly in attached bars, but have yet to do so.

Skokie, Wilmette and Highland Park are among the few suburbs that restricted public smoking in recent years.

"This is monumental and groundbreaking in the Senate," said Janet Williams of the Illinois Coalition Against Tobacco. "This is the first year the Senate has even discussed the Illinois Clean Indoor Air law."

The measure passed the Senate by a vote of 35-16.

Also in the upper chamber, senators voted 33-20 to require public universities to post voter registration forms on their Web sites and include voter registration information and forms in Illinois student registration mail. They also would have to provide voter registration forms at in-person student registration.

Opponents maintained that students should use the same address as their parents when registering to vote, an argument rejected in the 1970s by a federal court dealing with registration of University of Illinois students.

For years, said Sen. Jeff Schoenberg (D-Evanston), opponents of opening up the voting process in Illinois have sought to block such measures.

"With all due respect," said Schoenberg, "I feel like this is deja vu again."

Senators also approved legislation, pushed by Cook County Clerk David Orr, that would allow election authorities to count absentee votes that arrive at the election authority up to 14 days late, something only allowed for overseas and military voters now.

Also Tuesday, the Senate sent to the governor a bill that would exempt gun "swaps" from the waiting period currently imposed on the sale of firearms. Gun owners commonly trade-in one or more guns on a new gun that they are purchasing, advocates say.

The waiting period is meant to provide a "cooling off" period for people before they buy new guns. Advocates for the change say people who already own a weapon probably don't need to cool off.